The work creates a shelter, a new medium to stimulate the body's metabolism and facilitate its transformation. The used kombucha skin acts as a membrane, a protective layer fostering favorable conditions for the growth of its culture. The skin acts as an intermediary, positioned between the individual and the world—an archive where sensory experiences are stored. Can we preserve the experience recorded in the skin by creating an imprint of it? Can we emerge from the old and grow a new skin? “Second Skin” promises to fulfill the fantasy of self-reinvention.
Watching the body covered with a tea “mushroom” gives rise to conflicting feelings. The similarity of the “mushroom” to skin or fat formations attracts and repels at the same time. Uncanny feeling is caused by an unpleasant sensation that arises when faced with a strangely familiar, but at the same time weird or frightening image. This contradiction causes anxiety, mistrust of reality and its proposed interpretations, health practices.